The award will honor companies making the biggest strides in implementing personalized marketing and services for their customers through their ongoing relationships with them.

NEW YORK, NY--Association for Interactive Media (AIM) and Unica Corporation have announced nominations for the first AIM/Unica Personalization Excellence Awards. The award highlights the importance of successfully balancing personalization with consumer privacy protection in order to foster customer loyalty and satisfaction, honoring companies making the biggest strides in implementing personalized marketing and services for their customers through their ongoing relationships with them.

The awards partnership between AIM and Unica was developed as a method for highlighting the best practices of the fast-developing industry that they both represent. AIM is the largest trade association in the world devoted to helping Internet-related companies and other forms of interactive media to reach their target audiences, and Unica Corporation is a provider of analytical customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation solutions.

Nominations, made through online submissions, opened March 26 and will conclude on April 16. Judges, including Yankee Group Vice President of Internet and Media Research Kevin Noonan and Gartner Group Vice President and Research Director for CRM Scott Nelson, will be evaluating the candidates until April 30, when the finalists will be announced at AIM's Annual Conference, AIM Interact: 2001, May 12-16. The awards ceremony will be held at 1 p.m., May 15, at Tampa, Florida's Westin Innisbrook Resort.

AIM is a member-driven association that serves its membership through the development of network and educational communities; by instilling confidence in e-commerce and new technologies; and acting as a government advocate on behalf of the interactive business industry.

Through its comprehensive analytical and CRM solutions, Unica helps businesses implement one-to-one customer interaction strategies that communicate distinctive messages via a variety of channels.